The present invention relates generally to a method of and system for auctioning off commercial (CM) frames for on-air content and a method of and system for automatically sending on-air content.
In broadcasting industry, the production department of a broadcast station produces and organizes content to be put on the air and the transmission department puts on the air the produced and organized content, thereby supplying television programs to an audience. Television programs, which are on-air content, are largely classified into “live” programs in which an event is broadcast in real time and “recorded” programs in which an event recorded in advance is reproduced later for broadcasting. Each of the television programs, live or recorded, in commercial broadcasting is composed of at least one piece of program content and one piece of CM content each of most television programs is constituted as on-air content which is a time-series set managed in sequence and time composed of plural program frames obtained by dividing one piece of program content or incorporating plural different pieces of program content and plural CM frames each incorporated with plural pieces of CM content.
Referring to FIG. 22, there is shown a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary configuration of on-air content to be broadcast and the related-art processes for establishing on-air content.
The production department produces various kinds of program content and CM content. In process, the production starts with the gathering of materials on site for example by use of materials gathering equipment. Materials are a collection of video and audio fragments before editing which are called primitive materials. Next, the collected materials are edited and manipulated by use of editing equipment into sources. Based on these sources, program content Ctp and CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn are produced. On-air content Ctoa is organized by combining these program content Ctp and CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn.
As shown, typical on-air content Ctoa is composed of plural program frames Frp1 through Frp4 and CM frames Frc11 through Frc34 arranged in a predetermined sequence in time. Each of program frames Frp1 through Frp4 is incorporated with one of the divisions of program content Ctp for example and each of CM frame Frc11 through Frc34 is incorporated with one of CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn.
Generally, CM content is of two types; one is CM content corresponding to a program provider (program sponsor) and the other is sponsor-independent, spot CM content which corresponds to a spot CM provider (spot CM sponsor). Hence, the CM content to be described below includes both types.
It should be noted that CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn may be supplied by program sponsors and/or spot Cm sponsors, rather than produced by the production department of a broadcast station.
On the other hand, the sales department sets the sponsor of the organized on-air content Ctoa. To be specific, the sales department sells CM frames Frc11 through Frc34 of this on-air content Ctoa into which CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn can be incorporated to the sponsor. The sponsor buys desired CM frames and specifies the CM content to be incorporated in the purchased CM frames. Consequently, the CM frame Frc11 through Frc34 is sold before actually being broadcast and, when the sponsor and the CM content to be incorporated are determined, scheduling information including the content of CM frame is registered into a broadcast sales information system which manages sales information and the CM content is prepared. In the preparation of the CM content, the program content Ctp and the CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn are stored and managed by a program bank and a CM bank respectively arranged in each broadcast station.
When the setting of the sponsor and the CM content into each of the CM frames Frc11 through Frc34 and the registration of the scheduling information into the broadcast sales information system have been completed, the transmission department retrieves the scheduling information from the broadcast sales information system at a predetermined time and, on the basis of the retrieved information, broadcasts the time-dependently scheduled on-air content Ctoa by taking the specified program content Ctp and CM content Ctm1 through Ctmn from the program bank and the CM bank respectively, upon which a television program is established. In addition, a part of each televised content (or source) is archived for long-term storage in a reproducible manner.
As described above, the CM frames of on-air content are sold to sponsors. However, in the above-mentioned related-art technology, the sale of Cm frames, the registration of the CM frame content into the broadcast sales information system, and the preparation of CM content are individually and manually performed, thereby presenting a problem of requiring time and labor.
Moreover, at the sale of CM frames, the related-art technology requires the adjustment of the arrangement of the plural CM frames of a same piece of on-air content in order to prevent the setting of competitive sponsors and competitive providers of a same kind of industry, in turn requiring time and labor.
Further, if plural sponsor candidates desire the provision of a same CM frame, individual negotiations are made between persons in charge due to business custom, thereby requiring time and labor to set an optimum sale price.
In addition, in consideration of the time (overhead) involved in the above-mentioned sales and so on, CM frames are sold and the sponsor setting is made much earlier than their actual broadcasting, so that the prices of the CM frames are set in advance (for example, several days before broadcasting), thereby presenting a problem that the audience reaction during broadcasting cannot be reflected onto the price.
Consequently, even if a CM frame is inserted in a program earning a high audience rate during actual broadcasting and therefore can attain high advertisement effects, the price of such a CM frame cannot be dynamically set or reset because its price were set and fixed beforehand. Namely, it is difficult for the related-art technology to reflect the market prices of CM frames onto their sale prices.
Further, the above-mentioned related-art configuration and processing mode require labor for executing the jobs and procedures from the setting of CM frame sponsors by the sales department to the actual broadcasting by the transmission department, thereby lowering the efficiency of the system and making it difficult to cut the operational cost.